While the developers are partially at fault, the publishers are too. Very few games actually meet their original deadlines. It's the publisher's job to recognize when a game needs more time and provide it (within reason). It's common business sense. The money you save by forcing a game out on time will not compensate for the losses you'll inevitably take when the game bombs because it is buggy and clearly unfinished.

The reason they have had bugs is due to a shitty publisher, PB is clearly very very talented as a group of about 16 turn out these incredibly complex and innovative RPGs.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Making games is a collaboration between developers and publishers. Publishers don't go around forcing developers to start projects they cannot complete. On the contrary, developers start on projects, and then usually run around and shop for publishers, proposing features, timelines and budgets. More often than not, developers propose extremely optimistic budgets and timeframes, hoping to get a publishing contract, and then they end up incapable of making a quality game under those conditions.

Cases are extremely rare when a publisher rushes in and releases the game before the contracted release date, not giving the developers enough time to finish. What usually happens is the opposite: the developer promises the earth and the sky, but then when the release date comes, it turns out they were only able to do half, and even that is a buggy mess.

So the reason Gothic games are buggy is because the developers bite more than they can chew. They cram features in there that they cannot get to work in time for release. It's hard to fault the publisher for not saying "oh hell, you promised to deliver this game tomorrow but you couldn't and it's an unstable buggy mess, well, fine, here, take another couple of mil, go on vacation, finish the game next year!"

Buggy games are caused by poor planning by the developers. Sometimes they promise too much because they're dishonest and just want to screw the publishers, and sometimes they promise too much because they're eager and optimistic and don't know what they're getting into. In Gothic's case it's clearly the latter, but with a bit of a former too, because honestly, after all these games, they should learn to plan ahead already and be able to figure out which features they're capable of delivering in time for release.

The reason they have had bugs is due to a shitty publisher, PB is clearly very very talented as a group of about 16 turn out these incredibly complex and innovative RPGs.

Think about that 16 doing the work of say compared to bethseda whom has a 100 or more PLUS they didn't even write their own engine as PB. So we 16 turning out more complex and innovative than 100 in LESS time. PB released 2003 and 2006, with bethseda 2002 and 2006.

Think PB could have tested and released more stable if they had an extra 6 months? I mean come on who the fuck are we kidding here, do you have any idea how much money PB saves by NOT having an extra 75 people on the team and the piece of shit publisher can't give PB another 6 fucking months, which is STILL LESS than the time bethesda took.

Yet their publisher jowood is so low rate, incompetent and impotent as a business they constantly rush out buggy and broken games, to the detriment of their OWN sales and reviews. I wish stupidity was prosecutable offense.

Oddly enough some (most?) gamers are so unclear (dumb?) about the way game development works, they happy to jump right in blaming the developer. This is one of the biggest reasons Troika had such a hard time, they made some of the BEST RPGs but buggy because they didn't get enough time to test out all the POSSIBLE choices in game.

wow those screenshots are so nice. I hope the rest of the game is up to that quality level. Wow. Especially like the weapons images. Looks like what an artist would do 30 years ago or what prerenders would look like 5 years ago.

We need a good dungeon crawler like Dungeon Master (1987/88) was but with those graphics!!

I really enjoyed G1 and G2 over anything Bethesda made. Bethesda games have the best art, and really amazing engines, but their games are so repetitive. Gothic is always surprising you with things. Too bad they are concentrating on the engine so much, which eats away at valuable story and play time for Q&A.

Really, i would be happy with the Oblivion engine for awhile and just have them tweak it to add more believable A.I. and for once, kids!